Losing Control
by MsButterFingers
Summary: "The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love." -William Shakespeare. Sequel to Hard To Control Myself. Rated for language, rating may change later on.
1. Prologue

Surprise! :D

_Disclaimer: I don't own any characters/settings from The Powerpuff Girls, they all belong to Craig McCracken. Also, I don't own that Anne Rice quote!_

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

_"Evil is a point of view." -Anne Rice_

**-Unknown POV, two years prior-**

Two teenagers sat on a spread picnic blanket.

The boy had red hair, a kind of grungy looking rusty red, unkempt in that sort of bed-headed style that was so popular with the human women. He was tall, peculiarly built, and seemed surprisingly more capable than a boy his age should be. The girl was a petite little thing, small boned and small faced, with winding coppery red hair all the way down her back. Despite her delicate appearance, though, she had a sort of aura of power surrounding her, and there was such strength and fire sweltering off of her that it put a familiar mix of disdain and a sickening pang of inferiority in my stomach.

I hated them. I loathed them. I despised them. It took everything in me not to leap down from my tree and strangle the living breath out of them—watch the life slowly leak from their unusual colored eyes.

Those two were the reason I had been forced out of my home. The reason I was forced to walk the streets, not as a renown super villain, but as an animal, a starving animal with no purpose but to sleep and find food and poop.

_They ruined me._

The Powerpuff girl I had always hated. Her and her nauseating sisters were the bane of my fucking existence. Their whole life, I'd tried to get rid of them. I tried everything I could think of to kill them. Poisoning them with Antidote X, shooting at them with bullets, lasers, fire, even attempting to destroy their very foundation, their creator—Professor. Yet even as mere children, they made a fool out of me—shamed me and beat me to my core, threw me into prison countless times. Never in my life had I known true hate until they had come into my life.

But the Rowdyruff. That Rowdyruff.

I _created_ him. He was My Creation. He and his brothers I _created_ to destroy those eyesores, those repulsive creatures. The moment they were born, that's what they knew they were supposed to do. I made them pure evil, made their souls ache for bloodshed and violence. That's what they were made for.

I admit that I sometimes felt a fondness for them. I wouldn't call it love necessarily; I wouldn't think myself capable of that feeling. But sometimes I would look at them and feel proud. I'd look at them and feel proud of the monsters I'd created, feel proud knowing that they were mine and Him's for the taking, and they would have to do whatever I said, whenever I said it, and they would have no choice.

But something happened. They grew up. And I started to notice more and more that they would start to defy me. And it wasn't until that fateful day in Citysville when they abandoned me for good that I realized how far it had gone.

I was shocked, absolutely flabbergasted at what they were trying to do. I tried everything to get them to stay. I begged them. I threatened them and cursed them. But nothing worked. They didn't listen to a word I said.

And it was then that I realized that they weren't mine anymore, I had power over them no longer. So, I had no choice but to leave them alone. Never had I ever felt so powerless.

Months later, I received a message from Him. I hadn't heard from him in a long time—long had our one-time alliance in raising the Rowdyruffs had been over. Just as most of the other villains in the area, he had eventually begun to ignore me. As far as they were all concerned, I wasn't a villain anymore. Gone were my days of brilliant schemes and respectable efforts at killing the heroines that Shall Not Be Named. As far as they were concerned, I was past my prime. I was just an old chimp with an overabundant intelligence and a conceit that eventually caught up with me.

But when Him sent me that message, and a brief one at that, it made me forget all about earning my fellow villains' respect again. It was something so massive, so mandatory, that Him had forgotten all about that too. His message read, simply, '_The boys are in love with them.'_

I was so livid, all I could do was stare at those words as my hands trembled uncontrollably.

My vision of my perfect Creations was forever soiled.

My Creations had betrayed me. Stabbed me in the back, shamed me in the worst way. They had abandoned me. And those wretched Powerpuffs were the reasons for why they did. And did they leave me for those super-powered bitches because they wanted to get them themselves? Not to destroy them, like I'd originally thought. No. It was _because they were in love with them_.

The very thing they were created to destroy. The bane of my existence.

I didn't know why they were doing this to me. Maybe it was to shame me, to sting me directly in the festering wound.

One other probable reason, which was less of a possibility, was that they really did have romantic feelings for them. That one I could hardly stand to think about without my face draining. I'd like to think that I made My Creations better than that, that they really were evil and that they were just doing this to spite me, or to make a point. That I could better handle, or even want.

Either way, I couldn't let it continue. It simply would not do.

I silently climbed one limb up in my pine tree as the boy looked up suddenly, hearing it when a small stick I leaned on snapped off and tumbled to the ground.

The girl touched his shoulder. "You okay?"

He continued looking around for a moment, and just as he almost looked directly where I was, he turned back around to face her. "Didn't you hear that?"

"Yeah," she said, giving him a funny look. "But it was probably just an animal. We _are_ in the woods, you know."

That seemed to sober him a little. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

She nudged him now, a little flirtatious touch that made me sick. "Why, haven't you been camping out here before?" She teased. "Are you _scared_?"

The boy laughed briefly before nudging her back. "Shut up." He grabbed her hand as she shoved back and held it in both of his. He gazed at her. "Hey, Bloss."

"Hmm?" She was flushed a light pink.

He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it briefly. "I love you." He leaned closer to her, and his face held this strange sort of grin, one that almost made him completely unrecognizable to me. He closed the space between them and locked his lips with hers in a brief kiss. I cursed under my breath.

When they broke, the girl looked at him with such adoration, such fondness, that it took everything inside me not to scream in fury. She bit her lip and ran a thumb over one of his hands. "I love you."

They kissed again, and I had to look away this time, or I was sure I'd throw up. It was disturbing. It was wrong, seeing them together like that. _So_ wrong. It was like seeing a beached whale in the middle of a busy downtown intersection. It was against nature, was something that just shouldn't happen.

My overgrown claws gripped the tree trunk and dug into the bark, and it began to rip off in chunks. I tore my hands away from the trunk before I split it in half.

No, this would not do. Not at all.

They would pay for this, for what they did to me. All of them.

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><p>Chapter one coming soon! I've already started it, but for more up-to-the-day information about this story, just check out my new Livejournal! (Link in my profile.)<p>

Missed you guys, seriously! **Review?**

**-MsButterFingers**


	2. Breathe

So sorry for the wait guys. SO SORRY. School's taking up so much of my time these days. But! For up-to-date stuff about my progress on chapters for my different stories, and other stuff too, check out my LiveJournal! Link's in my profile!

Well then, let's get to it. Here's my gift to you guys! Chapter one, baby! Wooooo! So many exclamation points!

_Disclaimer: I don't own any characters or settings from The Powerpuff Girls, all belong to Craig McCracken. I also do not own anything by MTV, or BMW's. I wish I had one, though._

Sorry for errors!

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

**(Blossom's POV, Present Day)**

I tapped my foot impatiently as I listened to the other line ring again and again. My stiletto heel popped loudly against the wood floor. A few feet away, Bubbles was telling Buttercup all about her sorority, something I was positive that Buttercup cared nothing about.

Before the last ring could sound, I hung up. I had already left two somewhat nagging voicemails, and I had no desire to leave another one. "Brick, you're killing me here." I muttered under my breath.

Buttercup, cutting Bubbles off mid-rant—something about the last spa night she'd had at her sorority house, looked up at me in the manner of a dog pricking their ears up at a weird sound. "He hasn't picked up still?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

Bubbles, after briefly getting over her irritation that her green-eyed sister was no longer listening, looked at me in mild concern. "Seriously? Isn't that the sixth time you've called him now?"

I sighed. It probably was, but then again, I'd been calling him for about an hour by this point, and I'd begun to lose track. "Yeah. I have no clue where he could be." I looked down at my hot pink pencil skirt and black lace blouse, the date outfit that had somehow taken me at least two hours to pick out, an entirely painful process that I had no clue would be so difficult. Everything else looked too wrong, too frumpy, too boyish, too plain. It was so hard to be a girl.

"Well, at least sit down until he gets here," Bubbles offered. "Come talk with us."

I looked at her, appalled. "I can't sit down. It'll wrinkle my skirt."

Buttercup looked at me dryly. "Brick won't care if your skirt is wrinkled." She paused, popping a grape into her mouth from the bowl on the table. "And if the wrinkles on your skirt is all he notices whenever he looks in that region, and not your ass, then we have an entirely different set of problems."

Bubbles snorted, and I chose to ignore that comment.

I knew I was overreacting, of course, but I was anxious to see Brick again. Since our freshman year of college had started, we'd both been so busy, especially since the Rowdyruff brothers had opted to go to the University of Townsville instead of Warner University, as we'd chosen.

While Bubbles and Buttercup had both been busy with sorority and dorm parties, respectively, I'd spent my free time either studying in my dorm room or at the campus coffee shop, or going to visit Professor. All of that left little time to take visits to the UT campus to go see my boyfriend, which sucked, but that was the repercussion of having a chemical engineering major. We mostly had to talk on the phone and video chat, but none of that really helped the dull ache of his absence go away. It was why I was so excited for this date, our first date in a while.

But Brick had told me the day before, Thursday afternoon, that he'd pick me up at six, which had been an hour and a half earlier. He'd never been so late for a date before, and it had started to make me wonder if I was the only one really anticipating this date.

I sighed and gave in, going over to our designated table in the large dining hall and sitting down at it. The dining hall was considerably full by then, filled by students eating and some occupying their tables with books instead of food, a low hum of chatter echoing off the walls in the area. I stared at my sisters' empty plates and the small bowl of grapes sitting in the middle of the table, thinking about how I could've been eating a delicious dinner with my boyfriend by then.

As if she read my mind, Buttercup pushed the bowl towards me. "Might as well," she said, shrugging. "No use starving to death while Brick takes his sweet time moseying over here."

I didn't even bother verbalizing my agreement; I reached for the bowl so fast. I was so hungry that my stomach ached with hollowness. I ripped three grapes off of the vine at a time and stuffed my mouth with them. "God, I'm hungry," I mumbled around my food.

My sisters looked at me in sympathy, and Bubbles reached a hand over to my hair. "Your curls are falling out," she pointed out, her face scrunching in disappointment. "It was perfect when I did it two hours ago."

Grabbing another four grapes from the bowl, I took a quick glance at the ends of my red hair, tumbling to my ribs. Sure enough, the curved ends were straightening out, looking more flat and strangled than pretty and bouncy. I ate the grapes in my hand, taking care not to bite my tongue in my haste. "Sorry," I said between chews.

"Maybe I should have used more hairspray," Bubbles murmured to herself, fluffing my hair to arrange it so it looked better.

"Can we talk about something else?" I asked, resting a hand under my chin. Maybe talking about something else would take away the anxiousness in my gut. "Buttercup, how's your Wing Chun club going?"

She leaned back on the bench, a smirk spreading on her face. "Oh, you know. Too easy, as usual. Fun though."

Buttercup had gotten into different types of martial arts later in High School; she found it relaxing and a useful outlet for her anger. Admittedly, it had taken her a while to learn to control her strength with her human sparring partners— there had been a few accidents—but in the end she had chosen Wing Chun as her favorite, as it involved more skill and wit rather than strength and power.

"I sparred with Butch the other day." She continued. "Took him down in thirty seconds."

"Why do I have the feeling that your sparring didn't end with that kind of wrestling?" said Bubbles. I almost choked on my grape at the look Buttercup shot at her.

"Excuse you," Buttercup said indignantly. "We were in public. I have standards, you know." She lifted her eyebrows. "And besides, we have his dorm room for that."

"Apparently," I said. I reached for one of the unopened cans of Coke that Buttercup had bought for herself; she was always buying them in bulk so she could take the extras up to our dorm room. "That would explain why you're gone somewhere else seventy-percent of the time that you're not at parties."

She snorted. "Oh, like you're Miss Innocence over there?" She shook her head at me. "I've seen the way Brick looks at you."

"How does he look at me?"

"Like he's seen you naked," she said loudly, like it was the most obvious fact in the world. A few people walking by our table paused and looked at her in alarm.

"_Buttercup. _Shh." Bubbles scolded, giving the random group a tight smile as they walked away and then glancing around to make sure nobody else had heard.

I felt a burn under my skin spread past my hairline and all the way down to my collarbones. In discomfort, I raised a hand to smooth across my forehead. "No," I said quickly. "No, no. He hasn't. We haven't done…that…yet."

"Uh huh," Buttercup nodded slowly. "Sure."

"Really!" I exclaimed, feeling my skin burn brighter. This entire conversation was thoroughly embarrassing to me. It certainly shouldn't have been, I was 18 now damn it, but I was presently redder than a strawberry. "We haven't. It just…hasn't been the right time."

Bubbles looked suddenly shy of our topic of conversation too, a self-conscious little grin on her face. "Me and Boomer haven't either," she said to Buttercup. "We just wanted to be sure we were both ready."

"Well that's all fine and dandy," Buttercup replied, an impatient look on her face. "But you guys have been dating them for just over two years now." She gestured at us. "How is that even possible? What, did the saint-like-restraint gene miss me, or something? I mean…haven't you wanted to?"

I took that moment to pop open the top of my soda and take a large swig.

Bubbles cleared her throat, running her fingers through her blonde, recently cut chin-length bob. I missed her long hair, but this cut flattered her just as well. She still looked like a super model no matter what she did with it. "Can we please change the subject? I'd rather not talk about this right now."

"Seconded," I cut in, swallowing my soda. "Especially while I'm sitting here waiting for my very tardy boyfr—" My cell phone went off then, ringing with Bricks' ringtone and buzzing and lighting up, scaring the living crap out of me. Quickly getting over it, I snatched my phone from the table, pressing the green 'SEND' button on the touch screen. "Hello?"

"I'm parked outside," Brick said by way of greeting. "Give me a chance to explain in the car. I have a good excuse, I promise."

Slightly relieved that he had finally called me back, and yet still annoyed by how late he was, all I could do was say nothing and press 'END' with a displeased huff. I stood from the table then, bending to reach underneath the table to grab my purse.

"He'd better have a good excuse," Buttercup said as if she'd heard Brick, or maybe she had. "He's really asking for it lately."

As irritated as I was, I shook my head, stuffing my cell phone into my bag and then reaching for my pastel pink peacoat. "He's just preoccupied with school," I said in his defense. "I don't think he can help it."

"Boomer is, too. But even when he's running late to come see me, he makes the time to call. But Brick…" Bubbles pressed her glossed lips together and shrugged, leaving the rest of her sentence hanging in the air.

I sighed, not answering her. I tucked my hands underneath my now flat hair and pulled to free it from underneath my coat. "Leaving," I said, turning to walk away. "Call you later."

Bubbles waved, and Buttercup called after me, "Hey, give him a nice slap for me, will you?"

I teetered out of the noisy dining hall and towards the front entrance. As I pushed the doors open, I was ambushed by bitingly frosty air, and it knocked the wind out of me momentarily. For the beginning of November, it was already unseasonably cold. My breath puffing around my face in small clouds, I turned my head to peruse the area, and when I looked to the left, I saw Brick's burgundy BMW stalled by the curb with the engine running. Despite my aggravated mood, I couldn't help the flip that my stomach made.

As soon as I reached his car, I threw the passenger side door open and plopped down into my seat. I shut my door and sat for a moment, just staring out the windshield grumpily. The entire car was toasty warm, and it smelled like him, like spearmint and aftershave. After a few beats passed, I turned my head to look at my boyfriend, whom was already looking at me guiltily.

"Hey," he said mildly. He wore a black trench coat over a red cotton shirt and black jeans, his hair grown slightly past his chin, shaggy, and gloriously sexy. He made it look so easy. Damn him.

I sniffed, looking away again theatrically. "Hello, empty car seat. When you see my boyfriend, can you tell him he's ridiculously late?"

Brick managed a snort, and then sighed. "I'm sorry, baby. I swear I did _not_ mean for this to happen."

His apology already having loosened me up considerably, I glanced at him again with a smirk. "'I didn't mean for this to happen', he says."

"Really, I didn't!" He said lifting his hands and dropping them to slap down onto the steering wheel. I pinched my lips together to keep my smirk from growing into a smile. "My last class ran way late. The lecture was long enough to begin with, but then Professor Cavadini started talking about erosion and the effects it has on soil, and she went on this ridiculous hour-long tangent about the effects of pollution on economics and—"

Grabbing his chin, a bit stubbly now with the slightest bit of five o'clock shadow, I cut off his rant by pressing my lips to his tenderly. I broke the kiss, eyeing him with a smile. "I love it when you talk geeky to me."

As I started to pull away, he put his hand at the back of my head, curling his fingers into my hair, and pulled my lips back to his, kissing me with such warmth that I'd forgotten why I was mad in the first place.

Pulling away finally, he settled back into his seat with a satisfied grin. "So am I forgiven, then?"

I feigned an exasperated sigh and tapped a finger to my chin, pursing my lips. "Maybe," I said. Then, leaning down to free my feet of the stiletto heels for the car ride, I added, "But that's what you get for taking Cavadini's Agronomy course."

Brick laughed then, and then glanced down to shift the car into drive to pull away from the curb. "I'm starting to realize that, thanks." He looked at me sidelong. "I was going to buy flowers, but I didn't have time. If it helps my case any, I think you're real pretty."

I smiled and waved a hand, feeling a blush creep onto my face. I was glad to know my hard work hadn't been fruitless. "You're not bad, yourself." I lay back against the dark leather seat with a sigh. "So, how has school been? How has life been? It feels like I haven't seen you in years."

"School's good. Life's…well. It'd be better if I could see you more." We began driving away from my campus then, and I felt myself let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

"I know," I said. "Workaholics, both of us. We need to make more time." I reached my hand over to rub and squeeze his shoulder. "I miss my boyfriend."

He glanced at me, the side of his mouth turning up in a half smile that looked sort of sad. "I miss you too." His face turned solemn and he turned his gaze back to the road, his voice sounding softer. "You're always on my mind, Bloss. I hope you know that."

My heart picked up pace. Sometimes when he said things, things like that that made me forget how to breathe momentarily, I couldn't believe how lucky I was. Even after being with him for two years, whenever I thought about how much I loved him, it overwhelmed me.

"I know," I told him. It was all I could say.

He took a hand from the steering wheel and reached over to lace his fingers through mine. And as we drove to wherever our date would be, I leaned on his broad shoulder and drank in his company, the company I missed every moment we were away from each other.

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><p><strong>(Buttercup's POV)<strong>

"Buuuuuuubbles," I whined despairingly to my sister on the other side of the room. "Get off the phooooone."

By way of a reply, Bubbles turned her back to me, pressing the phone closer to her ear. "What about Sunday, then? We could go for coffee. I wanna see you."

I sighed dramatically, falling over face first onto Blossom's pink comforter. I lifted my face from the bed then. "You talk to him on the phone _all the time_. I'm still sitting here, you know." At her continued cold shoulder, I cupped my hands around my mouth, shouting, "Helloooooo!"

Bubbles looked at me sharply over her shoulder, covering the receiver with her hand. "Buttercup, shut up." She turned back to her phone then. "Sorry, baby. Buttercup's being annoying." She said the last part loud enough so I could hear.

My mouth popped open, and before I could think twice about it, I leaned over, grabbed one of Blossom's sparkly decorative pillows and hurled it at her head. It struck her in the back of the head so roughly that her head jerked forward, her short blonde hair flopping into her face. She dropped the phone and nearly fell to the floor until she grabbed the wall for balance. My hands flew to my mouth. Whoops.

She turned and looked at me slowly, her blue eyes looking at me through her hair so maliciously that I thought she might use her laser vision on me. "_Ow_," she said, managing to put enough poison in the one-syllable word that it made me cringe. She blew some hair out of her face. "What the _hell?_"

I held my hands up in defense. "Sorry!" I said. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to throw it so hard! I just wanted your attention!"

"So then come over and talk to me! Don't _bludgeon _me with a pillow!" She rubbed the back of her head, grinding her teeth. "What are you, ten?" I could hear Boomer's tiny voice calling to her from her dropped phone, and Bubbles apparently could too, because she bent to retrieve it.

I leaned back against the rest of Blossoms pillows, folding my arms. "Well, _excuse_ _me_ for wanting to spend quality time with my sister without her boyfriend listening in."

Before I had enough time to react or to even notice what she was doing, Bubbles launched the sparkly pillow back at me. Sailing through the air in a pale blue blur, it walloped me directly across the face, knocking me completely off of the bed and onto the hardwood floor with a loud thump.

"GOD," I shouted, partly in resentment and partly in astonishment. Plus, it's not like it felt that good either.

"Sorry about that, hun. Had to take care of a pest." She cleared her throat loudly. "So, Sunday then? Okay. You'll pick me up from the house?"

I crawled off the floor and went to stand in front of the mirror on the opposite wall to survey the damage. I grasped my ravaged cheek, scowling miserably. It glowed with a bright red welt. I gently prodded my nose piercing with a finger, which happened to be on the same side of my face, and it throbbed in answer.

"I miss you too, sweetie. I'll see you soon. Okay. Buh-bye."

My hair didn't look so hot either, but that was just because I hadn't had a haircut in a while. It was beginning to get too long for my tastes. I tugged on the too-long ends, falling way past my shoulders by now. Suddenly, Bubbles appeared by my reflection.

I glowered at her in the mirror. "Look what you did to my face!" I complained, pointing at the welt that was, to my chagrin, already beginning to disappear, thanks to that damned advanced healing ability.

She just shrugged at it. "Always dishing it out, and never taking it," she said with a smirk.

"Hey now," I pointed at her reflection now, raising my eyebrows. "There's a difference. _Mine_ was an accident. Yours was just pure cruelty."

"Okay, okay, fine." She said, leaning her head on my shoulder. She pouted her bottom lip. "I'm sorry I hurt your face."

I looked at her sideways. "You'd better be." I turned sharply then, grabbing her wrist and taking her back over to Blossom's bed. We could've sat on mine considering it was only six feet away, but whenever Blossom was out I always preferred to sit on hers. It was a lot more comfortable than mine, with my flat black comforter and just two lime green pillows. It led me to think that perhaps I needed to go to one of those bedding stores that Blossom went to for her dorm decor. "We need to finish this movie. It was your idea to watch it in the first place."

As we sat on the bed again—minus the sparkly pillow that we'd turned into a deadly weapon—Bubbles settled back and grabbed the bowl of potato chips off of the bedside table. "Sorry, I just got distracted. Okay, press play."

I leaned forward to grab the remote to the DVD player and pressed the play button. The movie on the TV started playing again, filling the room with sound.

Warner University was a private college, so that meant that the dorms were slightly nicer than the average college dorm. And not only that, but Professor had been willing to really splurge on our dorm supplies, even going as far as buying this television for Blossom and I and paying the college extra money so we could mount it on the wall. Since Bubbles lived in the sorority house with her super happy go lucky blondie sorority pals, she didn't get a television, but that place was basically a mansion anyway, so it wasn't like she needed it. But whenever she came over to our dorm to hang out, half the time she hogged it to watch her MTV reality shows. Annoying.

Only half-paying attention to the movie now, I watched as the leading lady got dipped over by the leading man, leaning in to kiss her.

"This movie's sappy," I announced.

Bubbles shushed me. "It's romantic. Now shush."

As the leading man grasped the woman's hands, pleading her to run away with him, I sighed and glanced over at my cell phone on the bedside table. I reached for it, pressing the envelope icon on the screen. I scrolled through the inbox, looking for any recent messages that I'd missed. There were none.

"_I love you_," the man in the movie said. "_I've always loved you_."

"How long have you and Boomer gone without talking?" I asked my sister suddenly.

She turned to look at me, potato chip half frozen to her mouth. "I don't know. Maybe half a week, once." She tilted her head. "Why?"

I shook my head, sighing. "No reason."

After five minutes more of sort of paying attention to the sap-fest, I could restrain myself no longer. I went to 'Butch' in my contact list and pushed 'SEND'. I glanced over to Bubbles again, and she just smiled at me and turned back to the movie. "Try to talk quietly so I can hear this," was all she said.

Smiling slightly, even though she couldn't see it, I turned away so my feet touched the ground and I was faced away from the television. I tapped my toes restlessly against the floor. After four rings, he finally answered.

"Hello?"

"So, what," I started, now completely miffed and skipping greetings altogether. "I'm just supposed to call you first every time, or I don't get to talk to you at all?"

"Hello to you too." I heard him snort. "And by the way, I didn't call because I thought you were busy." He added defensively.

I rolled my eyes, trying hard to remain mad, but it was hard now that I'd actually begun talking to him and I was hearing his voice in my ear.

"Oh, busy my ass." I sighed loudly into the receiver, sounding dramatic to my own ears, but I kept it up. "Admit it. You just didn't want to talk to me."

Bubbles shushed. I waved a flippant hand.

"I swear, I don't care if I'm being eaten alive by a Chupacabra, or trapped on an alien ship, or stuck in a room full of ninja assassins. I'd still want to talk to you on the phone." I could hear a smile in his voice, as there always was toward me, forever patient with my temper. Somehow, this was enough to calm me again.

I couldn't help it, I grinned widely now. "You're stupid," I said, my face burning. I knew he'd be able to hear me smiling too, but I didn't care. He was a dork. But he was my dork.

He laughed. "I love you, too, Buttercup."

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><p><strong>(Blossom's POV)<strong>

Four hours later, we were parked in front of my dorm's entrance again.

The difference was that this time, instead of sitting in my own seat, as soon as we had pulled up in front of the school, I'd scooted over the middle compartment and cup holders and curled up in Brick's lap, leaning my head on his shoulder. His arms held me close to him in the cramped space, one hand resting on my shoulder and the other holding my legs, tracing patterns into the thick fabric of my skirt. Anyone could have looked in and seen, but neither of us cared.

There was only him and I, and the soft sound of our breathing and our steady heartbeats.

I grasped the lapel of his jacket, snuggling my face further into the crook of his neck. I breathed him in, knowing I couldn't for much longer. There was a 10 page College Chemistry I homework assignment to do, and a 20 page paper I had due in Academic Writing on Monday, and studying in just about every other class. It felt like the entire world was waiting for me outside that car, waiting for the moment when it could pile on top of my shoulders again. In here, it was warm, safe. Comfortable.

I let out a sigh. I lifted my face slightly, my lips brushing against his skin, and speaking into the pulse point underneath his jaw, I whispered, "I don't want to go."

And as predictable as it sounded, I really didn't. Because I knew if I did it would mean not seeing him again for who knew how long. And I didn't care if that made me that typical girlfriend who couldn't be away from her boyfriend, because being around him wasn't like an obsession. It was like a basic physical necessity, like breathing oxygen or drinking water, a necessary part of living for me. Even if every other aspect of my life changed in a second, if my entire world was different, there would always be him.

He turned his head to press his lips into my forehead, and then brushed his fingers across my hairline, smoothing my hair back. "I know, Bloss. I know."

We stayed that way for a while, I didn't know how long, but by the time I had gotten out of the car and into the cold again, it felt much too short.

As I approached the tall door to the dorm, my hand stayed frozen on the long handle, unable to pull it open again. I turned and looked over my shoulder, expecting Brick to have driven away already, but he was still stalled by the curb, his window rolled down and his eyes on me, watching me to make sure I got in safely.

I raised one hand in a wave, my gut beginning to ache with loss already, and before I could fly to his car again for one more kiss, _just one more_, I threw the door open and forced myself to walk into the building.

As the door closed, I stopped on the other side, looking back through its large window, and I watched his BMW drive away.

* * *

><p>Please don't forget to leave me a <strong>review<strong>! Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

Happy Holidays!

**-MsButterFingers**


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